Iceland now finding it tough to cope with overtourism and downsides

Friday, September 13, 2019

Hordes of rapacious tourists snapping up dirty water from a rapidly melting glacier are an austere picture of the state of Iceland’s tourism sector.

Iceland has been the poster child for the positive and negative effects of overtourism.

Tourism growth helped the country recover after a brutal financial crisis bringing in a new breed of entrepreneurs. Tourism revenue now accounts for 42 percent of Iceland’s economy, which is an increase from around 27 percent in 2013, as per Statistics Iceland.

With increased importance of tourism, the country’s fishing and manufacturing sectors have lessened over time. The change has made the country’s overall economy dependent on foreign visitors.

“It’s never been about the tourists, it’s more about the industry itself,” said Inga Hlín Pálsdóttir, director of Visit Iceland. “After the financial crisis, we were always worried. Are we going into the same bubble? Are we going in the same direction, that this is a bubble that is going to burst?”

After a decade of Iceland’s unprecedented growth as a global tourism hotspot, a variety of issues have led to an economic slowdown that many are seeing as a good thing for the country’s travel sector.

With the wave of overtourism crested in Iceland over the summer, the country is thinking about the future. Fortunes have been made and lost over the last decade, with many now thinking of Iceland’s future as a more mature tourism destination.

Tourism in Iceland began to grow after the April 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in the country’s south. It was cheap to visit and costs were affordable due to the country’s weak currency; the eruption gathered global attention to Iceland’s natural beauty.

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